STEAK ON COALS WITH ANCHOVY BUTTER

Thick-cut, salted, oiled and cooked to perfection, then topped with a super-savoury anchovy butter that melts in as the meat rests.

F&T WINE MATCH

A spicy and peppery northern Rhône Syrah is a must with steak (eg 2018 Saint Joseph, Francois Villard, Rhône, France)

IN PURSUIT OF FLAVOUR

Cooking with fire has been around longer than we’ve had the language to write about it. For some, the appeal is the atavistic thrill of controlling the fire – how satisfying on a sunny afternoon to build up a good layer of char on a great cut of meat. But, far more exciting is how, as we become fascinated by diverse global foodways and technology develops, we’re more able to pursue subtleties of flavour. Today, cooking with fire isn’t about blackening a steak or incinerating cheap sausages; it’s everything from the authentic ‘bark’ on a BBQ hog butt to a Korean bo ssam, from the delicacy of a Japanese yakitori to a Galician slow-grilled turbot. For a new generation of chefs and food enthusiasts, outdoor fire cooking has become a tool for creating flavour. How the food will taste depends on the ‘Flavour Triangle’: the ingredient’s quality and how you prepare it; the fuel (and type of heat – indirect or direct) over which you cook it; and the gear you use.

FUEL TO THE FLAME

Wood is the earliest form of fuel for cooking fires, but it’s not ideal for consistent cooking, which is one of the reasons cooks turned to charcoal. Charcoal is amazing stuff. It’s light, easy to store, burns with efficiency and produces little ash or smoke. Discerning home cooks tend to prefer ‘lumpwood’ charcoal made from big chunks of hardwood, charred in retorts – it’s beautiful to look at, black, shiny and with the original structure of the timber intact. More expensive charcoals are purer and offer an amazing source of consistent, clean and controllable heat. If well-made, they release variations in aroma to complement your food (and a certain amount of flavour is generated when food drips on to the hot coal and creates smoke). If you want to add the aromatic smokes of exotic woods back into the equation, the most efficient way is to use wood chips. Throwing a handful of well-soaked chips of applewood on to the hot charcoal will produce a small, controllable burst of smoke and steam, just enough to stick to the outside of the food as it cooks. Apple, hickory, pecan, mesquite and cherry are all easily obtainable; alder and cedar can add particular flavours to fish, while birch adds a Scandinavian influence. Hay, fresh branches of juniper, rosemary or hyssop can also help to fine-tune the flavour.